Case Number 06634

GALAXY FRAULEIN YUNA

The Charge

Super hero, super TV star, savior of the universe!

The Case

Yuna is an energetic, happy-go-lucky young girl who enjoys hanging out with
her many friends and watching the adventures of her favorite TV action hero,
Polylina. But somewhere far off in space, the Galactic Council knows the truth.
Yuna is really a champion, the one called upon whenever evil threatens to
destroy the universe. And this happens more often than you'd think, what with
the villainous Fraulein D roaming the stars in her spaceship, plotting new
schemes to take down both Yuna and the Council. With the help of some stylish
battle armor, a seemingly endless arsenal, and a few hundred of her best
friends, Yuna has established herself as a hero time and time again, becoming a
celebrity in her own right.

In other words, there's a lot of fighting, and everyone yells.

It took me a while to figure out just what it was I was reviewing. The DVD
packaging and menus call it Yuna. The opening credits of the first two
episodes bear the title Galaxy Fraulein Yuna, and the next three episodes
are titled Galaxy Fraulein Yuna Returns. Amazon tells me this is
"Volume 1," although it starts off in the middle of the story. After
many hours of diligent research, I discovered that this is an original animation
video based on a video game. That's how the series can nominally begin here,
even though the characters have already been introduced and a lot of story has
already taken place.

Have you ever started watching a movie at its halfway point, and tried to
stick with it even though you don't know what the heck was going on? That's the
feeling here. The first episode begins with Yuna returning from space, just
after her first adventure. A brief narration informs us of what has just
happened, and then we're off. This is standard superhero adventure stuff, so
it's not that confusing. The problem is a lack of context. For example, when a
crisis occurs, all of Yuna's friends from outer space arrive. We, the viewers,
are never informed ahead of time that she has all these friends, yet we're
somehow expected to know instantly who they all are with just a mention of their
names.

So for fans of the game, who are already familiar with the reams of
background information about these characters, it's a lot of fun, right? Sadly,
the series has another fatal flaw. This would be the yelling. Apparently, the
director told the voice actors, "scream every line at the top of your
lungs, no matter what the scene is about." And that's just what they do. I
can understand the creators wanting to make the show energetic and exciting in
order to draw in younger viewers, but all this yelling is overkill. Imagine an
11-year-old girl putting her mouth right up to your ear and screaming into it
nonstop for 30 minutes. Now imagine 20 girls doing that all at once, and you'll
get some idea of the Yuna experience.

For everything Yuna gets wrong, there are some things the series does
right. First among these is the quality of the animation, which is gorgeous to
look at. There's a lot of action here, and all the characters' movements are
smooth and fluid, if exaggerated. The full screen transfer is excellent, with
bright, vivid colors and solid black levels. The two 2.0 tracks, in English and
the original Japanese, are also quite good, with the music, sound effects and
constant yelling coming through loud and clear. The only extra feature is a
textless opening, hidden as an Easter egg.

There are some significant differences between the subtitles and the English
dub. The subtitles include a number of jokes where the characters break the
fourth wall, either by talking directly to the viewer or lamenting their lack of
screen time. In the English dub, these jokes are lost, and instead we
get...lesbianism. For some reason, the dub adds a running joke where Yuna keeps
assuming other female characters are in love with her, and she's confused about
her own feelings. I have nothing against anime lesbians, but these bits seem out
of place in what is otherwise a kid-friendly, girl power superhero cartoon.

That's not to say all of the humor fails. Yuna has a friend named Shiori who
does everything...very...slowly. It's to the creators' credit that this running
gag works as well as it does. Despite the character's lethargy, the show
brightens up when she is on screen. And when the time comes for Shiori to don
her own battle armor and take on the villain? That's easily the high point of
the disc. Maybe it's just because she was the only character not yelling, but I
found myself wishing the series was Galaxy Fraulein Shiori instead.

Yuna is a series on the verge of greatness, but some annoyingly bad
voice acting and a few other nitpicks keep it from being all it could be.
Recommended only for the most hardcore of hardcore anime fans.